Censored! 10th June 2001

This website and it's sister site, the anti-corruption www.rogerlyons.com, were disabled on Sunday at MSF's Annual Conference.

For 3 years now MSF have provided an Internet Cafe in the Conference building. On Saturday morning conference delegates could access the entire Internet, however a junior official, watching over the shoulder of one delegate, realised that LyonsWeb was being accessed. The officer promptly grabbed the mouse hand of the delegate, and informed him he was not to access that site. A more senior official confirmed the same. The delegate was outraged and immediately submitted a written complaint to Standing Orders Committee.

As the day wore on, officials began complaining about the large number of delegates accessing the sites, and on at least 2 occasions threatened to close the Cafe completely. By Sunday morning the officials had found a way of disabling each of the computers from accessing www.rogerlyons.com. This was done using 'Content Advisor', intended for concerned parents to control inquisitive children. There shortly followed the disabling of www.msfweb.org.uk, www.msfweb.com, www.msfweb.org and www.notrogerlyons.com.

What came next was quite farcical. Another delegate had managed to bypass the security using 'anonymizer' websites. These are designed to prevent employers snooping on employees' private viewing. He then departed the cafe
leaving the PC logged in to the forbidden site. Meanwhile the author of www.rogerlyons.com, delegate (suspended) David Beaumont, was quietly accessing his personal email two PCs away. An irate third delegate, spotting both the offending site and recognising the author, proceeded to harangue David Beaumont about it. Officials joined in the argument and within minutes later there were at least 4 officials surrounding David. A fifth went off to call in the General Secretary, Big Bro himself, Roger Lyons.

Now Lyons had clearly had a bad day. One delegate had moved a motion at the rostrum wearing a rogerlyons.com T shirt. This detailed Lyons' expense claims on the back and was clearly visible to Lyons and the 30 other NEC members seated on the podium behind. Moreover Lyons had just learnt that the Left candidate for the Presidency had won. He was twitchy.

Surrounded by 3 or 4 senior NEC members, he proceeded to join in the discussion. His observation was that one of his expense claims, at The Kebab House in Liverpool, some £132, was not just for him but for 10 other select NEC members. He implicated Hugh Scullion and John Gardner, who were standing beside him. David Beaumont pointed out that Lyons' credit card statements indicated frequent visits to takeaways at MSF members' expense. Incensed, Lyons shouted back 'You're a liar' in front of the NEC members and several independent witnesses, a complete breach of MSF Harassment code. He went on to admit to having MSF paid-for takeaways 'once or twice a month'.

Now what does all this say about the senior leadership in MSF? Firstly that they are rattled by the rapidly increasing use of new technology by MSF lay members: At Conference today they are opposing an amendment to collect lay members' email addresses and distribute them to lay Regional Councils (Motion 6). Secondly, and more importantly, that they are completely ignorant of the major privacy issues surrounding use of the technology by employers. It is well known that employers are forbidden to snoop on employees personal use of email or Internet Access, subject to clearly pre-defined 'acceptable use policies'.

The situation at Conference today (Monday) is that every delegate is forbidden to look at these websites. The argument is that it is an abuse of the Union (i.e. the members) provided facilities. Therefore if you are reading a paper version of this, make sure you don't sit in the MSF provided seats or stand on the MSF provided carpet, in fact do not occupy the MSF provided space or breathe the air. Do however please pass it on as we could only afford to do a few copies. A limited edition!
Posted by www.rogerlyons.com on 10th June 2001